


Aftermath

by rohanrider3



Category: Guardians of the Galaxy (All Media Types), Guardians of the Galaxy (Telltale Games)
Genre: Fluff, Gen, Guardians of the galaxy as family, Hurt/Comfort, Team Feels, Team as Family
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-06
Updated: 2017-06-06
Packaged: 2018-11-09 17:37:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,186
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11109528
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/rohanrider3/pseuds/rohanrider3
Summary: None of them noticed when Peter died. Afterwards, though...





	Aftermath

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for the first level of Telltale Games' Guardians of the Galaxy. After the shocking end to the fight with Hala, I desperately wanted to "see" the team's reactions, but couldn't wait until Episode 2 came out. The result was this one shot. Enjoy! :)

Quill was so quiet. And still. Rocket’s brain slowed, stopped working.  
It wasn’t right.  
It just wasn’t right. Quill was always moving, always walking, always talking—dast it, he NEVER stopped talking—but that was just who he was. Quill was the motormouth, the distraction, the smartass, the stupid jerk who always thought he was so funny. And he was. He just often didn’t intend to be. And he made everyone else almost instinctively bond together as a result, if out of nothing more than reluctant, laughing exasperation at his unfathomable stupidity.  
Rocket pushed away the sudden and uncomfortable thought that maybe that was what Quill —the big, goofy moron—had always wanted in the first place.  
Instead, Rocket blinked harder than was strictly necessary and forced himself to focus on the fact that the guy in question was sprawled out on the Milano’s deck with a gigantic, gaping stab wound in his gorram chest. And was barely able to turn his dast head to look at them.  
Oh, great. Now the idiot’s trying to be all nonchalant about it. A weak smile and a thready “Hey, guys.” indeed. GodsDAMMIT, Quill.

It wasn’t right.  
Quill should be moving. He was always moving.  
But he’s not. He hasn’t moved at all, not his legs, not his arms, not his hands—he hasn’t moved at all since Gamorra put him down, he just turned his head, and even that, just barely, a tired, tiny turn towards him, right when Rocket had come down the stairs sneering that if little Petey Q had a boo-boo, he should just walk it off and stop being a wuss—

—but then Rocket had come around the stairs and seen how still, and worse, how quiet Quill was—  
—and seen the awful slash across his chest, and the blood seeping out from under the back of Quill’s jacket—  
—the thought flashed across his mind that Quill loved that jacket, and he was gonna gripe and moan about it being ruined for hours—  
—if he—  
—if he doesn’t—

—Quill’s head isn’t moving now either, not really, he can’t move it, he doesn’t even have the energy for that now, now he’s just blinking and looking at Groot and Rocket, crap, crap, why, what, why, oh, maybe Quill thinks they might know what to do, and Rocket doesn’t, oh God oh God oh God oh God—  
—Rocket doesn’t know, he just doesn’t know, if Quill was an engine or a ship maybe he could fix him, big maybe, there’s only so much you can do when there’s a literal hole burned through the vital parts of somethin—  
—but Rocket doesn’t want to say anythin yet, because he’s scared he’ll scare Quill, but beneath the brave smile Quill’s tryin to keep on his face, Rocket knows Quill’s scared too— —Rocket knows what that looks like—it’s the eyes—

—aw, God, Quill’s so scared—  
—and Rocket doesn’t know how to fix it—  
—but Rocket should try—  
—someone should try—

—Rocket gulps hard, feeling all-too familiar panic race through him, and he shoves it away, bares his teeth in much-more-welcome anger, instead—he’s not sure at what, exactly—  
—because he sure as hell doesn’t have any kind of medical training, and he doesn’t think anyone else on the team does either, because honestly, all of them are real good at fighting but absolu-fracking-lutely terrible at anything regarding actual healing—  
—even Groot has his limits—  
—dammit, Quill, why couldn’t you have gotten stabbed even a little less lethally? This is somehow your fault, you stupid reckless heroic sonofa—

—And now Drax is yelling at Gamora about how this is her fault—  
—and Drax’s yelling because he’s scared, which makes him mad, and Gamorra’s yelling back, because if anything, she’s more scared than Drax, and now of all things she starts yelling at Groot, and at Rocket too, which makes Rocket mad—  
—which, to be honest, is almost a relief, because if he’s this mad he doesn’t have to keep thinking about how still and quiet Quill is, and how he doesn’t know how to help his friend—  
—so Rocket yells back at Gamorra, just, once, because, because honestly she deserves it—  
—and they all start fighting—  
—and they’re not looking at Peter until Groot howls for their attention—  
—and by then Peter’s gone.

*****

In an instant, the bay is silent.  
Deathly silent.  
Rocket shivers in the sudden cold.  
It hadn’t been this cold before. Had it?  
And Peter had been breathing, if not very well, just a second ago.  
Hadn’t he?  
He’d been breathin. Not well, but breathin.  
When had he stopped?  
He wasn’t supposed to stop.  
He had to keep breathin until they broke the sound barrier to Knowhere and threw him into a NovaCorps infirmary. Like they had the last half a dozen times Quill had been a self-sacrificial idiot.  
Quill didn’t understand that. That was why he had—temporarily—stopped breathin.  
But…Quill knew he had to keep breathin. He knew he had to hang on. Hadn’t he known?  
Well, Rocket had been going to tell him to do that in no uncertain terms. Was going to remind him again.  
Rocket always had to remind Quill about important things. Not that Quill had ever listened.  
But…this time…this time Rocket was the one who hadn’t….hadn’t listened.  
And now there was nothing to hear.

Rocket stared down at his friend’s ashen face, swallowed hard, felt his heart plummet out of his chest, through the warped metal floorboards under his paws, and get jettisoned out into the vacuum of dark, cold space along with the rest of the trash.  
Because now Quill…because, now Peter…isn’t breathin.  
Hasn’t for awhile, now, it looks like. Rocket gulps, feels the seconds stretch out into eternities as he stares downwards.  
The silence hurts his ears. Worse than the yelling. And the yelling had cut out as soon as Groot had gasped and pointed a leafy finger down at their friend, the cause of all the ruckus.  
The friend who isn’t looking at anyone anymore.  
But Quill had been looking at them before. At all of them. But he wasn’t now. Wasn’t looking at anyone. Probably choosing now of all times to start sleeping, the lazy half-humie bastard.

  
And humies always slept with their eyes open. Right? Just because Rocket’s never seen Pete do this before, it doesn’t mean anything is really, awfully, irreparably wrong. Right? Right?! They had credits, there were infirmaries and doctors not even that far away, so they could save him. There’s nothing credits and a few death-threats to slow emergency room lines won’t fix.  
Right?  
Rocket knows he’s wrong.  
But he doesn’t want to know it.  
And Groot is crying. The big guy never cries. Not unless something real bad has happened.  
Rocket wants to snap at Groot to not overreact and to stop acting like a baby, but instead hunches his shoulders, feeling his ears droop and his tail sag. He can’t stop looking at Peter. He wants to, but he can’t. And Gamorra and Drax are frozen on the other side of Peter, still standing, still just staring down their friend.  
Groot’s still crying. He’s sobbing that Peter had been trying to say something, trying to stop them all from fighting. Again. Or maybe Peter had just been fighting to breathe. Maybe he was trying to do both.  
But no one had heard him through all the yellin.  
And now Peter’s quiet.  
And won’t ever be not-quiet again.

  
Rocket curls in on himself a little tighter at Groot’s sobs. Rocket himself sniffs hard, feels traitorous drops trickle down his muzzle and splash down onto the grimy floor platings at his paws. He looks closer, sees now how Peter’s hands are clenched at his sides, his bloody fingers gripping through the tiny square gratings in the cargo hold’s floor. Rocket’s gaze moves from Quill’s fingers to his face. And he stares at it again. It’s all twisted, blue eyes wide, expression lost and stark and scared.  
As if Pete’d been trying to say something, or get one last breath in before he’d gone away. And it looked like it had hurt, there at the end.  
Oh God. It _had_.

  
Groot repeated himself, thickly. Rocket winced.  
“—know he was scared, pal.” Rocket said in a very small voice.  
Gamorra sucks in a sharp breath at that. It sounds like she’d been kicked in the chest. When she speaks, her voice is slow and very small too. “Peter?” she whispers. “Peter…oh, Peter, no….”

  
Rocket’s still staring down at his friend. He knows he should check for a pulse, or something. Probably. But it’s as if his paws are frozen to the ground. Above him, Drax’s basso voice erupts like a volcano. Rocket hadn’t thought it possible for Drax to sound subdued, but the big guy does.  
“Peter?” he says, as if unwilling to believe his eyes. Then again, more harshly. “Friend Quill! Respond immediately to the sound of my voice!”

  
Quill doesn’t.  
And not because he’s being an ornery bastard, Rocket realizes with a sick little feeling in his stomach.  
It’s because he can’t.  
Quill…Peter…isn’t there anymore.  
What’s made him… _him_ …is gone.  
He’d disappeared while they were fighting.

  
And now there’s just this, this thing that looks like him, looking strangely small and grey and cold on the floor at their feet. Krutakin’ Celestials. On the _floor_ at their _feet_.  
Peter’d been right _there_. _They’d_ been right there. But they hadn’t been lookin at him. Hadn’t even really been by him, really. They’d just been standing around him, screaming across him at each other.  
A stupid bunch of jackasses, standing in a circle.

  
Peter’d been looking up at them, but they hadn’t been lookin at him.  
And he’d been hurt. And he’d been scared.  
And they’d….  
They’d just…

  
A harsh little sound tears its way out of Rocket’s throat, and before he knows it, he can’t see Peter’s upturned face anymore through the hot, watery haze that’s hijacked his vision. He tries to turn it into a snarl, can’t, and then starts blindly forward. A blurry hand reaches for his shoulder and he bats it away, furiously swiping at his eyes with one scarred furry paw.  
“We gotta do somethin.” he rasps. “We gotta—here, Groot, I gotta, I gotta—uh, we gotta, uh, stop the breathing—no, no, that’s not it, we stop the _bleeding_ , yeah, that’s it—  
—so, uh, gimme your arms and I’ll put pressure, here, and, uh, yeah, that’s the spot where a humie’s heart is, so, yeah, just, just, just press down here, and Gammy will help, and Drax’ll pilot us back to Nowhere, and we’ll, we’ll stop the bleeding and he’ll be fine—“

“Rocket—“ That was Drax’s voice, slow and painful. Rocket barreled on. He didn’t want to listen to Drax, Drax couldn’t understand subtlety anyway, Quill always teased him about it, and he and Quill would snigger about this once Quill was hooked up to a bajillion machines again anyways—maybe he could show Quill the bomb he was making with spare parts from Drax’s bedroom, it’d be fun to see the look on Quill’s face, anyways—

“Rocket…” Gammy’s voice, thin, weak, little, aw, hell, Gammy’s bein stupid too, how many idiots were on this ship, anyways—besides him—

“—am Groot—“

“SHUT UP!” Rocket screams, slashing through the air at one of Groot’s curling branches. His claws scratch at the tough wood and he ducks underneath the looping boughs, peeling his lips back from his teeth in a snarl. He realizes he’s right by Peter, now, hunched over his friend’s chest and glaring up at the others, eyes practically rolling backwards in their sockets. Heh. Maybe now they’d listen to him and get their friend to a dast doctor while he still had a chance.

“MOVE YOUR GORRAM ASSES!” he screams. They don’t listen to him. Groot moves again, kneeling down and reaching for him. Rocket howls and bites at him, but the big twig is implacable. Before he knows it, Rocket is gently—but inexorably—pried away from Peter, his kicking and thrashing notwithstanding. Groot tries to put him down as soon as he’s away from Peter. As soon as his paws touch the floor, Rocket scampers back towards the still figure.  
Groot intercepts him, picks him up, gently moves him back again.  
Rocket bites him.  
Groot frowns worriedly, flummoxed.

“Your attempts at aid are futile.” Drax rumbles, and Rocket stops gnawing at Groot’s leafy knuckles long enough to glare over at Drax. The big warrior has sunk to his knees by Quill’s body, and has gathered the limp form into his arms. He did it as easily as if Quill were still a child, and Rocket can’t help but notice how krutakin small Quill looks compared to the Destroyer. Even more, how still and quiet he is. And how grey. Pfft. The guy was never still or quiet like that. Not even when he slept. Sleeps, Rocket tells himself stubbornly. Quill never sleeps quietly. He’s always sleep talking or sleep yelling to himself and sometimes even sleep walking, and the cramped living space on the Milano means that no personal quirk goes unobserved for long.

And if Rocket heard him rocking out to his Awesome Mix Vol 1 at two in the morning again, he’d freaking kill—  
—kill—  
—kill, dead, Peter, gone, dead, gone—  
No—no—nononono _no_ —

—“oot!” Groot, shaking his shoulder gently, telling him to look at Drax. Rocket reluctantly turns unwilling eyes away from Peter’s face and towards their resident Destroyer. Drax met his gaze and sadly displays one of his hands, scarlet with something other than his tribe’s tattoos, to Rocket’s horrified eyes.  
“—nd Rocket, I have already tried to aid him. There is nothing more any of us can do.”  
Rocket snarls, but Drax cut him off, voice heavy with the threat of vengeance against the person—no, the thing—that did this. “That witch, Hala, tore the life from him with her treacherous and dishonorable attack.”

Drax was silent for a moment, his blue eyes heavy with an almost unutterable weariness as he looked back down at the still, silent form of his friend. His voice was grey and tired as he continued, and his deep voice shook a little on the next words. “And I fear his passing was not quick. Or painless.”  
Rocket shuddered, as if he’d been the one who’d been brutally impaled. His ears started to droop. Across from him, Drax’s shoulders slumped, and he met Rocket’s eyes with his own, looking more tired than Rocket had ever seen him. “Friend Rocket. He is gone.”

Rocket’s subsequent roar turned into something almost resembling a howl, and then he’s screaming about how he’s going to build a really big bomb, Quill, he will, a REALLY big one that can blow up TWO moons, and then he’ll find Hala, blow her into cosmic dust, and then collect the dust into a box and then blow that box up as well, he promises, Quill, he will, he will he will he will. Groot rumbles in distress and, turning, sees Gamorra still staring numbly down at them all. Groot blinks hard, reaches up another leafy hand, draws her down to join them where they kneel on the floor, around the body of their friend. In his other arm, Rocket is still howling and trying to bite Groot’s fingers off. Then he suddenly stops, shoulders slumping, and his small body shakes as he buries his head in his claws. As she sinks to her knees beside them, Gamorra absentmindedly holds out her arms towards Groot. Groot blinks, but almost immediately hands Rocket over to her, carefully managing the transition so that before Rocket knows it, he’s with not one, but two of his friends.  
He stiffens for a moment, but doesn’t seem to mind when Gamorra cradles him in her arms and gently strokes the fur between his ears, the motion automatic, soothing, calming. Groot notices she herself is still staring down at Peter’s ashen face. But Groot also sees Rocket’s frantic tension ease. Just a little.  
Groot swallows hard, looks down at Peter as well. None of this seems real to him, somehow.

With her other hand, Gamorra reaches out and, it seems, without thinking, brushes some of the sweaty hair off of Peter’s cold forehead.  
“I can’t…” she started. Stopped, swallowed hard, started again. “I can’t…he was just here. He was…he was still making jokes as we came into the ship. He said that it, that it could have gone better.”  
Her voice broke on a trembling, half-hysterical laugh. “He was bleeding out and was still making jokes. He said he couldn’t help it. And then I told him to hang on, and to stay with me, and he was, he was staying with me and then I looked away…just for a second, and then…” her voice faltered.  
Groot felt Rocket shake harder. He rustled in distress and searched frantically for something to say to his friend, to calm him down. As soon as he started to try, he instantly knew it was the wrong thing to say. Rocket tensed up again, worse than before, and his small head shot out of his paws and he outright snarled at his friend. It was a showing all teeth and eyes changing to slits sort of snarl.  
“No,” Rocket spat, “there was somethin we coulda done for him. We coulda been there.”

Drax looked confused. “You are mistaken, Friend Rocket. We have been here this entire time.”  
“THAT’S NOT WHAT I MEAN!” Rocket snarled. “We coulda helped him. Instead of just standin around yellin like a bunch’a dast jackasses.”  
On Rocket’s other side, Groot felt Gamorra tense. “You’re right.” She said hollowly. “He was…hurt and we could have…but instead…” her voice trailed off, what sounded suspiciously like tears choking it off. Groot felt his own throat close up. “I am Groot.” he said sadly. Drax stared at them uncomprehendingly for a moment. Then his expression cleared.  
“Ah.” he said dully. “I understand what you are saying.”

The rest of them looked tearily at him. He shifted his grip on Quill slightly, as if somehow that would ease the boy into a more comfortable position. Drax continued. “Even though his wound was mortal, we could have eased his passing. Instead, we chose to bicker and quarrel.” His open face crumpled in distress. “As a result of our ill-advised actions, Peter Quill died alone, surrounded yet ignored by his crew. Truly a horrible way to depart this world.”  
Gamorra choked and buried her face in Rocket’s fur. Rocket made a horrid little gulping sound and Groot couldn’t speak at all, now.

“What makes it worse,” Drax continued, staring stonily into the distance, “is how much Peter Quill valued companionship. Despite his obnoxious exterior, it was clear that he deeply feared being alone for any length of time.”  
Drax paused for a moment, cleared his throat harshly. His voice, when it continued, was rough.

“Indeed, our irrepressible leader displayed such effort in maintaining our bond that I often thought any rift between us would greatly wound him. It is tragic that such pointless and hurtful strife broke out mere moments before his death, when he was clearly already suffering extreme and unimaginable agon—“

He was cut off by an anguished howl. **“WE _KNOW_ , DRAX!”** Rocket shrieked. _**“STOP MAKIN IT WORSE!”**_

Drax blinked, broad forehead momentarily wrinkling, hurt flashing across his eyes. Then he took stock of Gamorra’s ashen face, Rocket’s trembling form, and Groot’s tears. Drax swallowed. And remained silent for a moment.

Then he spoke to the boy in his arms. It was the only thing left to do. On his world, before everything had changed, it was a well-known custom to, at the deathbed, apologize to any member of your immediate family for any wrong you had done them.  
He’d done it for Hova and Camaria.  
And he would do it for Peter Quill as well.

“I apologize, Star-Lord.” He said, voice low and sincere. “I let my temper blind me once again. I regret leaving you to die alone.”  
Gamorra was looking at him, eyes wide. Then she knew of his people’s custom as well. She swallowed, once, twice. Then, softly, she joined in. “I’m sorry, Peter. I’m sorry I didn’t stop Hala. And I’m so sorry I made your last moments…” she fumbled for words, couldn’t find them. Drax nodded at her encouragingly. But she couldn’t finish. He understood. So did Groot, who picked up the thread where she left off. “I….I… I am…Groot.” he rumbled. There was a short silence. Then Rocket, voice gravelly and hoarse from crying, lifted his head up briefly from where he’d buried it in his paws.

“I’m sorry for sayin you were a wuss.” he said miserably. “And I’m sorry for sayin you shoulda walked it off. I’m sorry for being one hundred percent of a dick to ya before ya died. And …I—I’m sorry fer not bein there with ya when…when….” His voice broke completely and he wilted against Gamorra’s side, ears drooping, hiding his face in his paws again. “I’m sorry, Petey.” he sobbed.

And together, on the grimy floor of a dirty cargo bay, the remainder of the Guardians of the Galaxy mourned their fallen friend.

Of course, that was when the dast artifact that Peter’d gone and gotten himself impaled for started glowing like a radioactive night light. And started hoverin over his chest, which, when they noticed it, freaked everyone the hell out.

But not half as much as when Quill had sat bolt upright, gasping for air like a starved lungfish, and looking as surprised and unnerved as the rest of them.  
Then again, “unnerved” was putting it rather mildly. Rocket shrieked as if he’d been shot and then scrabbled up Groot so quickly that bits of bark shredded off his friend like snowflakes in a winter storm. Drax fell backwards and, on pure instinct, pulled out both his knives, unsure of what to expect. Groot howled “I am GROOOOOT!”, grew another five feet out of pure shock, and smashed his head on the roof of the bay. Gamorra went white as a sheet and just stared back at their newly resurrected friend.

“Peter?” she said blankly. “What…”

The self-styled Star Lord shook himself, blinking rapidly. “Holy…” he breathed, and, when that familiar and essential motion clearly didn’t cause him excruciating agony, looked down wonderingly at his inexplicably healed torso. He blinked a few times, put one hand to the fourteen inch gash in his shirt, and blinked again.

“Huh.” he said blankly, and scratched his head in puzzlement, looking around. His eyes cleared as his memory returned.

“Ohhhhh yeeeaaaaah.” he drawled. “I was dead, I guess. But now I’m back. And my chest is back to, ya know, not impaled. So that’s cool.”

Then he looked around at his sprawled team. A confused but pleased grin lit up his face.

“Aw,” he said happily, “were you guys mourning my death?” He looked around the bay. “Whoa. On the cargo bay floor? Dudes, there are couches upstairs in the lounge. You had to be pretty dang uncomfortable down here. It’s freaking cold.” He brightened even more as comprehension began to dawn. “Waaaaaait, you guys were so upset that you didn’t even move from here?”

His team exchanged looks, then looked back to see his sunny, friendly face beaming hopefully at them.

Rocket coughed twice before answering. “Maybe.”

Gamorra sniffed and wiped at her eyes. “A little.”

“I am Groot.” Groot contributed, sincerely.

“There was much weeping and self-recrimination.” Drax said seriously. “We greatly mourned your death and deeply regretted our insensitive actions before you expired. Everyone was extremely perturbed and utterly inconsolable.”

The others glared at Drax with varying degrees of half-heartedness, and then looked guiltily back at their leader.

Peter grinned all over his face, but the tips of his ears had gone bright pink. The others pretended not to notice.

“Awwwww, thanks guys.” he said. And as he said it, Gamorra saw tension ease out of his shoulders. Rocket saw his standard smirk widen into a genuine smile. And

Drax saw his leader’s back straighten with a new sense of purpose. Groot noticed all three things, and beamed happily at the world in general.

“Shiny.” Peter said, and started to get up.

Four pairs of hands shot out to help him.

Three minutes later, they were arguing again.

But this time, it was about what sort of food was appropriate for a recently revived dead man to eat.

Drax advocated boiled octopod tentacles for the protein. Rocket sniffed at that and advised roasted beren flanks for the robust flavor. Gamorra advocated a sweet sort of sterien smoothie for both the taste and the obvious health benefits, and Groot proudly advised a sort of creamy thing that had tiny bits of cocheran in the crust.

Peter wanted Chinese takeout.

Somehow, they were able to compromise.

**Author's Note:**

> The feels are killing me. Also, the game makes me literally howl with laughter and tears. So excited for Level 2 to come out tomorrow!!!


End file.
